


our endless numbered days

by emmram



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers For 3.01, background Constagnan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 20:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6675136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmram/pseuds/emmram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Aramis-d’Artagnan reunion fic, as promised! Tag to 3.01. Aramis is having a few unique difficulties in reconnecting to d’Artagnan. Four years is a long time.</p><p>Summary: It’s only really starting to sink in for Aramis that he has spent twice as long unknowing d’Artagnan as he did knowing him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	our endless numbered days

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Huge honking SPOILERS for 3.01.

**our endless numbered days**

-

Aramis drops onto the bench next to d’Artagnan with an exaggerated groan, dragging a hand through his hair. “I’ve been sparring with Athos and Porthos—and let me tell you, the last time I exerted myself quite this hard, young d’Artagnan,” he says with feeling, “it was at the end of a week-long hazing that involved swords, a Comtesse’s underwear, two bags of bird seed, and a chase across the rooftops of greater Paris.”

d’Artagnan looks up from polishing his sword and flashes him a brief smile. “Give them time,” he says. “It’s been a long and difficult four years, but they’ve already forgiven you in their hearts.”

“Ah, and you presume to know what’s in their hearts?”

d’Artagnan puts his sword down and reaches across the table. Aramis tenses, and it is a great effort not to flinch away. “I know them as well as you would expect me to after spending four years with them trying not to die,” he says lightly, but this time Aramis _does_ flinch at the edge in his voice. d’Artagnan sits back with a bottle of wine in his hand, and pours a glass for himself and for Aramis. “They are incomplete without you, Aramis.”

Aramis accepts the glass from him and gives him a brief salute. “And you?” he asks.

d’Artagnan frowns. “What about me?”

“Do you—did you—” It’s absurd, teetering on the verge of selfishness, but Aramis needs to _know_.

“I’m glad you’re back, Aramis,” d’Artagnan says simply, and drains his glass in one swig.

-

These are the things that Aramis remembers:

Waking up when the morning is but a pink smudge against the night sky, the taste of the evening’s wine still at the back of his throat, muscles stiff and weary; the smell of horse, sweat, and gunpowder, and the faintest whiff of slightly charred bread; the sounds of clashing swords and muskets being primed; the heady, heart-pounding feeling of strapping his pauldron and thinking: _this could be my last day_. He remembers matching Porthos grin for grin and knowing exactly how far to push Athos after a particularly difficult night; remembers d’Artagnan teetering between a reckless belligerence and a sort of guileless devotion and how Aramis found that _comforting_ —

It isn’t as though he didn’t expect things to change after four years of war. It isn’t as though he hasn’t spent several nights at the monastery fantasising about a reunion with his brothers, and every story he told the children had been like unspooling a thread of memory and stitching it onto his heart.

The present, however, is nothing like he’d imagined or even remembered.

He finds the dichotomy the starkest when it comes to d’Artagnan: he’d expected the lad not to leave Constance’s side upon his return, but they are content to live their lives as usual, holding hands or sharing a kiss when their orbits intersect. He laughs and spars and talks with Porthos as though they are of one mind: they finish sentences and ruin each other’s jokes and their duels are a spectacle where neither is able—or willing—to outmanoeuvre the other. And the devotion that he’s always had for Athos is now a line that he pushes repeatedly, when he tries to assert himself and his plans. Sometimes Aramis can barely recognise him.

–and he is _everywhere_ : sparring with them, talking with Constance, training recruits, discussing strategy, with the horses. It is almost as though he has become bigger than the Inseparables he had once been so devoted to, and Aramis is, well. Aramis would be lying if he said he isn’t at least a little resentful.

Just a little bit.

-

They’re drunk, terribly, hopelessly drunk, and it’s the only explanation Aramis is willing to consider for the irritation that flares sharp and white-hot when d’Artagnan tells him, laughingly, of something _else_ he has missed in the last four years.

“I was fighting as a Musketeer for a considerably longer time than you have been with us, young d’Artagnan,” he says. “I am not unfamiliar with war and what it does to a man.”

d’Artagnan’s giddy smile does not change. “Not with this one.”

And that’s just the crux of the whole problem, isn’t it?

Porthos and Athos say nothing, and d’Artagnan just smiles and smiles and smiles.

-

“I apologise,” d’Artagnan tells him the next morning, and Aramis wants to scream at him: _don’t! don’t you dare!_ Because what does it mean that d’Artagnan is merely happy when his other friends are caught between relief and resentment? That d’Artagnan is asking for _forgiveness_ when Aramis deserves every harsh word flung at him and then some more? That d’Artagnan doesn’t understand all of this implicitly?

It’s only really starting to sink in for Aramis that he has spent twice as long unknowing d’Artagnan as he did knowing him.

“We need to talk,” Aramis says, and d’Artagnan blinks at him.

-

They sit at the mess table later that day, bathed in sunset. d’Artagnan peels an apple with his knife and offers a chunk to Aramis; he declines.

A few moments of silence, then: “I like what you’ve done with your hair.”

d’Artagnan almost chokes on a bite of apple. “Th-thanks,” he says. He appears to think for a moment, then adds: “It’s a fair bit of work, maintaining it I mean, but Constance seems to like it.” He ducks his head, smiling, as if at a memory.

Aramis strokes his own beard. “It is a particularly addictive brand of vanity,” he says.

“I had to shave it all off once,” d’Artagnan says. “Back when, uh. Um. Six months into the war. Musket ball grazed my scalp. Surgeon sheared it all off to put the stitches in.”

Aramis’ mouth goes dry, but he musters a smile. “You must have been livid.”

“When I regained my senses, yes.”

Aramis fiddles uncomfortably with his hat before d’Artagnan asks suddenly, “So what kind of stories were you telling about us to the children?”

Aramis grins. “Rest assured, d’Artagnan, that you were painted in the most heroic light possible. You were a favourite option to roleplay among the little children.”

d’Artagnan smiles, a little shyly, a little smugly, and it is an expression so familiar that Aramis feels warmth bloom in his chest. “Really?”

“Really,” Aramis says. “I told them how you were like them, once: a little boy with big dreams. Dreams that you went on to achieve, tenfold.”

“I dreamt of a lot of things,” d’Artagnan starts. Aramis leans forward, smiling, inviting.

It’s a start.


End file.
